Thursday, January 22, 2009

Another translation by H. Numan, this one from today’s De Telegraaf, followed by his commentary:

Court imports Saudi rules

According to the Wall Street Journal a Dutch court imports Saudi rules for the prosecution of parliamentarian Geert Wilders, in their publication on Thursday.

The concept of punishing people for insulting the religious feelings of other people approaches dangerously close to blasphemy laws as preferred by Islamic countries. The commentator scorns the decision to prosecute Wilders, for “if freedom of speech means something, it also includes the freedom to have controversial opinions.”

Maybe someone can clarify something for me. Is there a reason why Wilders, Winter, etc are being charged with saying things that are legally correct and not in any way actually inciting violence while we see photos of protesters and hear speeches by people literally calling for violence against one or more other groups of people - and in some cases following through on such calls (or having others follow through on those calls on their behalf) without fear of penalty? I realize that some imams have been tried and convicted in the UK (IIRC - unless those like Abu Hamza, etc were convicted on different counts) - but has it been done anywhere else in Europe?

Just looking for a little clarification on some of these issues - was hoping someone could spell out some of the legal differences in more detail....btw, is this a civil or criminal suit against wilders? Given that it's being brought by a number of individuals and not the state?